The workshop was supported by NRCs from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. MSU’s African Studies Center, Asian Studies Center, and Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the University of Michigan’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, East Asia NRC (comprised of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, and the Nam Center for Korean Studies), the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies (CMENAS), the Center for Latin America and the Caribbean Studies (LACS), and the Center for South Asian Studies (CSAS) collaborated to support the workshop. Funding for the workshop was made possible by Title VI National Resource Center grant funding from the Department of Education.
This workshop also marked another collaborative venture with the Atlanta Global Studies Center NRC (comprised of Georgia State University and Georgia Institute for Technology). AGSC Associate Director Ethan Trinh brought six teachers from Atlanta to participate in the workshop.
29 K-12 teachers from Michigan and Georgia came to East Lansing and participated in the workshop. Facilitated by U-M CSEAS Program Specialist Jonathan Valdez, the teachers learned about the history of comics, the field of comics studies, how to use graphic novels about different regions of the world, how to read a comic book page, and about different world regions from academic faculty and staff who use comics and graphic novels in their teaching. The teachers also received resources and materials to use in their classrooms and share with their fellow teachers.
Teachers learned about afrofuturism from MSU Professor Julian Chambliss, library resources in Michigan and the United States from MSU Comics Collection Librarian Jason Larsen, Chinese philosophy from Eastern Michigan University professor Brian Bruya, visual culture and the Arab Spring in Egypt from University of Michigan CMENAS Outreach Coordinator Jennifer Lund, and Cold War history in Argentina from CLAS Outreach Coordinator Chris Jensen.
Resources from the workshop will be available on the International Institute website soon.
